Miller – lightweight

I see Frank Miller has aired his erudite views on the Occupy protestors, namely that they are “louts, thieves, rapists”, and, in a quieter moment, as “pond scum”. I would be interested to see the statistics on how many acts of sexual violence have been perpetrated in the name of bringing regulation to a rogue banking system, perhaps Mr Miller has access to information not available to we wider public. Amorphous accusations of rape aside, Miller’s basic thesis is that Occupy protestors are despicable traitors for distracting the American working-class from the task at hand. Okay, so you’re being robbed blind by a rapacious capitalist banking elite but THIS IS NO TIME TO COMPLAIN BECAUSE ONE DAY ANOTHER MOOSLIM MIGHT BOMB YOU AGAIN YOU FAGGOTS!! If I may take a genuine quote from his reflection: “ The Occupy Movement- – HAH! Some ‘movement’, except if the word “bowel” is attached”Miller cheekily adds. Wry satire indeed, though I think Jonathan Swift and Evelyn Waugh can rest easily in their graves.

I’ve read The Dark Knight Returnsand and found it entertaining enough, but for all the political intrigue at its margins, at its core is pretty limited world view: the rabid adolescent revenge fantasy, and it doesn’t take much for this, untainted by wider insight, to ossify into lazy dyspeptic conservatism. And so now Miller’s infantile reaction has gone the whole way to its teleological Tea Party totality. His comic book work, and especially the films which stem from it, become more ludicrous as a result. Rick Moody takes on this theme in an article in today’s Guardian. While he makes some salient points, Moody seriously over-reaches himself in attempting to attribute Miller’s sickly bombast to all other super heroic action films produced near the Hollywood hills. The X Men: fascistic? No, no, no, that is lazy poo Moody: learn to differentiate.

Of course great art has been created by reactionaries over the decades, from Dostoyevsky to Celine, from T.S. Eliot to Larkin. But it’s always more comforting when bad politics and bad art go hand in hand, and, you know, this does happen more often than not. When it comes to graphic novels, Alan Moore is a great artist, and this wide scope of humanity shows in his politics. Frank Miller isn’t, and never has been. He’s a mediocre shock merchant and artistic lightweight, and his pitiful lumpen-brained, anti-human take on a world he cannot properly comprehend is quite in keeping with this.

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